Interesting article about how the ICC does little (and wrong) to help development of the associates teams:
http://www.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/441863.html?comments=all#comments

Eshen

February 23, 2010, 07:53 PM

It's unrealistic for associate teams to expect full members to play them more frequently. Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, and Bangladesh got much fewer matches against full strength teams from full members before they themselves became full members. But what they did was that they invited FC teams from Test playing countries to tour and participated in FC tournaments in their neighboring countries whenever given opportunity.

Now, some of the associate countries are going the other way. Take Ireland for example, the Irish team used to regularly participate in an English domestic one-day league. Now they stopped participating in that league as they are too busy playing other associate teams. IMO, it would have been more beneficial for Irish players to keep playing against professional English players than beating up teams of amateurs from other associate countries.

Farhad

February 23, 2010, 08:03 PM

Its a shame, really. Theres absolutely no way for the game to expand if they continue on like this. Its the classic Catch 22. The ICC really only wants to invest in a country (by scheduling matches with Test Nations and so on) if they think theres enough interest in the game. But the only way to garner enough interest is for them to play big games (read: test nation). It just seems to me like the ICC (or the individual team boards) are afraid of losing that initial money (which would have to be a considerable amount) to kick things off...

Xavier

February 24, 2010, 12:03 PM

Test countries A-teams should regurarly play the associates on first-class matches, to help their development. WC 2003 semifinalists Kenya were left alone with their board problems and Ireland have their most promising cricketers taken away by England.